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Monteith

(English, active 1678–1701)
1687-1688
Medium/TechniqueSilver, flat-chased ornament
DimensionsHeight x diameter: 15.2 × 29.2 cm (6 × 11 1/2 in.)
Troy weight: 37.7 troy ounces
Credit LineTheodora Wilbour Fund in memory of Charlotte Beebe Wilbour and partial gift of Anne H. and Frederick Vogel III
Accession number2018.114
On View
On view
ClassificationsSilver hollowware
Collections
Description

The notched rim of a monteith, a form first mentioned around 1680, held the stems of wine glasses as they chilled in ice water.

InscriptionsThe arms are impaled: (1) On a chevron between three griffin heads five cinquefoils, and a trefoil for difference, probably for Spencer family of Chester (Sir James Spencer was Lord Mayor of London in 1527), (2) A chevron gules between three cockatrice heads.
ProvenanceBy 1902, George Edward Martin (b. 1829 - d. 1905), England [see note 1]; by descent to his son Elliot George Bromley Martin (b. 1866 - d. 1946), Ham Court, Upton-on-Severn; March 26, 1924, E. Bromley Martin sale, Christie's, London, lot 106. Gerard Henry Craig Sellar (b. 1871 - d. 1929), Ardtornish House, Morvern, Scotland; March 19, 1930, posthumous Gerard Craig Sellar sale, Christie's, London, lot 103. 1981, How of Edinburgh, Ltd. (dealers), London; October 1981, sold by How of Edinburgh to Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Vogel, III, Milwaukee, WI; 2018, sold by Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Vogel to the MFA. (Accession Date: April 25, 2018)

NOTES:
[1] Mr. G. E. Martin loaned the bowl to the exhibition Old Silver-Work Chiefly English from the XVth to the XVIIIth Centuries (London, 1902), lot 35.
Group shot: 2002.27.1-12
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Diana and Stag Automaton
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about 1610–20